The private Ax-4 astronaut mission will head back home to Earth on Monday morning (July 14), and you can watch the action live.
The SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule carrying the four Ax-4 astronauts is scheduled to undock from the International Space Station (ISS) on Monday around 7:05 a.m. EDT (1105 GMT).
You’ll be able to watch that milestone live via NASA, SpaceX and Axiom Space, the Houston company that organized the Ax-4 mission. Space.com will carry NASA’s feed, if the agency makes it available.
NASA will begin its stream at 4:30 a.m. EDT (0830 GMT) to cover the closing of the hatches between the ISS and the Crew Dragon, which is expected around 4:55 a.m. EDT (0855 GMT).
The agency will pick up its coverage at 6:45 a.m. EDT (1045 GMT) for undocking. SpaceX and Axiom will begin their streams at this time, according to NASA.
NASA did not provide an estimated time for Ax-4’s splashdown back on Earth, which will occur in the Pacific Ocean off the California coast. The agency did say, however, that Axiom will stream the mission’s reentry and return on the company’s website.
Axiom-4 Crew:
Commander Peggy Whitson
Pilot Shubhanshu “Shux” Shukla
Mission Specialist Sławosz “Suave” Uznański-Wiśniewski
Mission Specialist Tibor Kapu
Ax-4 is commanded by Peggy Whitson, a former NASA astronaut who has spent more total time in space than any other American (nearly 700 days!) and now serves as Axiom’s director of human spaceflight.
Her crewmates are mission pilot Shubhanshu Shukla of India; Polish mission specialist Sławosz Uznański, who’s a European Space Agency astronaut; and mission specialist Tibor Kapu of Hungary. These three are the first people from their respective countries ever to visit the ISS.
Ax-4 launched atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on June 25 and arrived at the ISS a day later.
The four private astronauts have performed more than 60 scientific experiments and outreach activities during their time in orbit, which was expected to be two weeks. That was always a rough estimate, however: Dragon departure dates from the ISS are flexible, dependent on weather conditions near the splashdown site.
As its name suggests, Ax-4 is the fourth crewed ISS mission that Axiom has operated. The other three launched in April 2022, May 2023 and January 2024. All have used SpaceX hardware.